Golden Sun Book III: The Rise of Alex
by Ryu Gaia
Summary: Set directly after Golden Sun II.


**Golden Sun: Book III**

_The Rise of Alex_

By: Ryu Gaia

Chapter One: Tragedy in the Skies

He writhed in agony, screaming in pain as the stones came down upon him, first crushing the bones in his legs, absolutely destroying them. The stones covered him from his waist down in such a manner that he could not even see them any more. No blood, nothing. After the first instant of pain was over, he felt nothing. He had lost all feeling, all connection with his lower limbs.

Next came another rockslide, this time pinning his left arm down by his waist and crushing that as well. These rocks weren't quite as heavy or large, and he was forced to endure feeling every bone in his wrist and hand shatter and fragments of the bones being smashed through his skin in the last minutes that he would have feeling there.

He gave up screaming, he realized that it would have no use and no one was near there anyway. After all, who would hear him from the center of the earth?

-----

"Hey Garet, could you come over here and help me with this?" Isaac called to his old friend. He was struggling to hold the wooden beam up, and there was no way he could hold it steady on his own long enough to be nailed into the rest of the frame of the house.

"Sure thing, Isaac!" Garet emerged from a nearby cluster of trees to go to his friend, but as he ran out, his hair, which was solid as a rock and as tall as a chef's hat, struck a low tree branch, causing leaves to fall all over him. He began brushing his head off, and attempted to run his hand through his red hair. He failed miserably as the hair gel he used refused to permit his hand through. He quickly gave up, muttering something about cursed traveling salesmen, and ran over to his friend and began to help him hold up the wooden pole.

Since the rise of the Golden Sun had destroyed Mt. Aleph and thusly Vale with it, the Valeans had begun work on a new town far from ground zero and across the river that had previously stood between them and the rest of the world. Some of the people of Vault had volunteered to help, and the town was only a few days from completion. It was being built just south of Vault and sat on the banks of the southern river for its natural resources.

As Garet held the beam straight, he gazed out to observe the surrounding area. Just ahead of him was a beautiful flowing river and a small beach where children were playing, using psynergy to lift sand into a large pile that was evidently a mock-Mt. Aleph. He smiled at that, and remembered the first journey into Sol Sanctum in Mt. Aleph that had started the whole trek to begin with.

Ivan stood balanced on one upper beam in the frame of the house they were building, while psynergetically pounding the nails in, making work easier and faster.

"There, it's nailed in. You can let go now," Ivan called to Isaac and Garet down below.

"We can start putting up the wall wood now…" Isaac said. A small gust from behind blew his scarf over his eyes, and his friend laughed a small bit as he tried to step forward and walked into the beam they had just put up. "Oh, come on now."

Ivan smiled, and Garet walked away laughing.

Isaac sat down on the foundation of the house that they were building, which was a large, square stone slab. He looked at the rest of the town, and what they had accomplished. There was a row of several houses, or rather, cottages, stretching from Vault's direction to just near the river, and perpendicular to it was a much shorter row of about three houses. Opposite to the houses were the shops. There was a food shop selling bread, where Isaac eyed two small children sneaking an apple, the weapons shop, and the items shop.

Most of the places were already finished in construction, each being built in a similar fashion using almost identical blueprints so less time would be wasted designing the houses as opposed to building them.

Isaac got up and ran down to catch up with his friend, as he traveled down towards the river.

"So, Garet… After New Vale is finished, what are you going to be doing? Staying here, or going back out into the world?" queried Isaac.

"I don't know. It feels like everything that was worth staying for- our old town, that is, is gone. All the memories… Nothing feels the same here. Not to mention that after those last three years out in the real world, I'm not quite sure where I belong. We trekked the whole world, Isaac, we've been everywhere, fought off horrible monsters, so what else is there to do? Home just isn't satisfying," Garet replied. He then sighed, and spoke again. "I suppose I'm just rambling on. I guess what I mean to say is that I don't know if I'm going to stay here or not, because it's too boring for me."

"I'm going to go to Contigo with Ivan to check on Master Hamma, he hasn't seen her in a while and wants to get to know her better. I guess I'm just willing to go anywhere if it has any form of adventure involved or means getting to travel again."

Ivan sped up a bit and caught up with his taller friends. They were at the river now, standing on the soft sand and the sound of a current over rocks could be heard.

"Hey! Isaac, Garet, I've thought of something. After visiting Master Hamma, is there any way we can try to find out what's beyond Gaia Falls?" Ivan said.

Isaac looked to the sky thoughtfully, and then brought his gaze to the water.

"I have always wondered what is beyond there…"

"I have a theory," Ivan said. "I think that what we know as Weyard is sitting upon a glacier."

"What?" Garet was either confused or found that nonsensical. It was probably a combination of both.

"How would that be?" asked Isaac.

"Well, it would account for a lot. The glacier melted under the sun's heat when…"

Before Ivan could finish that sentence, something absolutely terrible happened.

-----

It has been foretold for countless centuries in Izumo that someday, mighty heroes will come to slay the dragon that plagues them. This came true eventually.

Other legends tell of darker things.

One speaks of the day that darkness clouds the sky around the world, and that tears will rain from it and that it will be followed by catastrophes. First the land shall flood. Then the volcano will erupt and sweep away heroes. Then shall follow mans' darkest age, and its darkest hour.

On this day, legends shall become reality…

-----

Alex could take it no longer as the stones consumed him. He controlled the rocks; he controlled the ground, the sky, the earth!

"I shall not stand for this!" he screamed, his voice horribly distorted his punctured lungs and windpipe.

With the last remnants of strength contained within his mangled and crushed body, he forced the rocks away, he forced the ground away. Energy began surging through his veins, he was powerful, and he knew that this power was that of the Golden Sun. He had succeeded in his quest, and he mentally smiled.

Beneath him, the world crumbled, and around him a crater formed. The crater grew deeper and deeper, and soon, lava came forth from the ground, as the crater had punctured what stood between it and the infernos that were the underworld.

Two powerful glows overcame Alex. First a white glow engulfed his body, shining radiantly, and then a black glow, and soon the white and the black glow swirled around him and expanded. Water blasted forth from his outstretched hands, which were fully repaired.

The bones in his legs reassembled themselves from the minor fragments they once were and his skin pulled back together again. His wounds and scars disappeared, and his eyes became a devilish red.

The water connected with the fiery substance below and from it gushed black smoke.

"I AM A GOD!"

The cloud of the black overcame the continent, the seas, and soon, the world…

------

A young Izuman child looked to the skies and cried. He then looked to his father and asked him. "Are the prophesies coming real? Is this truly the end?"

"I don't know… I don't know," replied his father, as rain began pelting them from the sky. The rain did not soak into the ground, and the world began to flood.

-----

Isaac, Ivan and Garet rushed into town, Garet with the small children who had been playing on the beach, one sitting on each shoulder.

"Get to higher ground!" They shouted to all people outdoors. Leon, their blue-haired Lemurian friend ran from his house and began casting douse in a frivolous attempt to stop the flooding, but it was to no avail as the water fell right back to the ground. He finally gave up and ran alongside his friends, sloshing through the water which refused to soak into the earth, as they ran to the second floor of Isaac's house.

'How ironic, the very thing that I live to serve, the element of water, is so destructive against me now…' Leon thought.

Isaac sat on his bed as the rain barraged the roof and ground outside the house, and sighed.

"Something is terribly wrong," Ivan said after a moment of meditation. "This rain isn't natural. Something evil is causing it, and I sense that its source is deep within Mt. Aleph…"

"Alex?" Leon and Garet thought out loud simultaneously.

"That can't be…" muttered Isaac, as he closed his deep blue eyes and fully lay down on the bed. His normally spiky blond hair was matted against his face from the rain, and soaked the pillow on his bed.

"Well, the power is definitely psynergetic, this much I am sure of," said Ivan. "Water is Alex's element, and he was the last person on Mt. Aleph…"

Isaac gazed out the window and nearly shouted. He instead muttered something.

"I hope that Mia, Felix, Sheba and Jenna are all right in Vault right now…"

The rain had risen quickly to be over a foot deep, and the river was overflowing tremendously.

"Isaac, we all feel the same way," Garet said. "The same way." He patted his friend on the shoulder reassuringly.

Ivan then sighed and leaned himself against one of the walls. "Something is just wrong about this…"

-----

Alex began standing upright in his black and white energy swirl. Yes… he was right, and now everything seemed right. The Wise One was wrong, he did have ultimate power. And now he would use it…

His hands blasted pure energy into the boiling lava below, towards its center, towards its core, where it exploded outwards and the lava was spewed across Angara.

The red molten rock fell from the sky and hissed as it hit the water on the ground, which had since elevated another foot.

Some lava cooled against it, and most of the water evaporated. The clouds of darkness grew ever stronger and lava began to fall from the clouds instead of rain.

The house Isaac was in was set aflame instantly, and the village was completely destroyed…

-----

Isaac reacted to the burning house instantly leaping out the window with the black orb in tow. Garet, Ivan, and Leon followed suit as the house was consumed by flames.

The glorious Lemurian ship in which so much of their travel was spent flew gracefully through the sky, psynergetically protected from the lava, causing it to slide harmlessly off of an energy shield. Isaac and his friends fell right onto it, and they piloted it as quickly as possible to Vault.

-----

Mia, Felix, Jenna, and Sheba were desperately fighting off the water and the fire that fell from the sky. The rest of the town around them was collapsing, most of it swept away in the initial flood, the rest destroyed by the lava.

Jenna was desperately casting Cool Aura on the lava, which caused it to harden around them in a small dome, which protected them from the outside. She and Mia had been casting powerful cooling spells to maintain the integrity of the dome, but their psynergy was dwindling quickly and no end to the siege was in sight.

'Sheba… Can you hear me?' Ivan attempted to contact Sheba mentally.

'Yes, Ivan. I can hear you.'

'You're alive! We have the ship. We're heading towards Vault… we're going to pick you up and any survivors.'

'There are no survivors, Ivan. We… Mia, Felix, Jenna, myself, we are the only survivors.'

A tear fell from Ivan's eye as he heard that. So many people… so many lives being destroyed. Something was terribly wrong.

'We're in a small dome made of lava, Jenna and Mia cooled some to save us. Hover over us, we can teleport onto the ship.'

"Isaac!" Ivan called to his friend. "Head to that one placed where the lava stopped moving, they're beneath it. They're alive, and they can teleport onto the ship!"

Isaac nodded and began moving the ship over the spot, and soon, several brightly colored flashes revealed his comrades on deck.

"We're here," Felix said.

-----

Alex was immensely satisfied with his new powers. He would seek out the wise one and destroy him for his impudence.

"I truly am a god…" he mused to himself, hovering in his black and white swirl, which now engulfed the crater and some of the mountains just near Mt. Aleph. "Next, I must extract from Isaac what is mine…"

-----

Authors Note / Disclaimer: This story may contain traces of influence from Star Wars, Stargate: SG-1, various mythologies, and possibly some religions. I don't own any of them.


End file.
